A Break in the Weather

The commission piece I was working on is now finished, picked up, and on its way to its new home in Jacksonville. 

This one I had professionally scanned before putting under glass to make sure I have a good image for making cards.  Almost time for turtle season again.  Now to get to work on my Koi painting.  Will post progress photos as it develops.

Sometimes work in the gallery leads into one day after another and I forget the time of year except having the seasons of heat on, doors open, doors and windows open, and then air conditioning time.  I came to the realization that it was coming upon on Valentine's day this week when a male customer came in with a request for "hearts, -anything with hearts".  My mind went blank as I searched each cobwebby corner of it thinking hearts, hearts, do I have hearts?  I looked around in vain.  My brain just works that way sometimes.  After he left my slow brain said, of course you have hearts.  I knew I had a pair of Sandy Washburn's copper earrings with tiny hearts and I had some pretty blue pendants in glass.  But I also had lots of heart beads in my boxes.  Inspiration is sometimes borne out of need.  I spent a couple of days turning everything heart shaped into wearable art.  I now have glass blown heart pendants, and small yellow glass heart pendant, and lots of porcelin hearts turned into all colors of earrings.  So now my brain is ready to say "Yes, we do have hearts".

Earlier in the week I took a friend with me as I checked on "ye ol' turtle nest" and did a bit of beach exploring with my photographer friend, Lea.  Some of the birds we were having trouble identifing but that is the way with gulls.  Their colors change so much with the seasons and age that since I am not a birder I don't worry about it that much.  The really big ones stand out because of their size and I am thinking that the smaller ones might be young laughing gulls whose black head has not fully changed in color.

I kept trying to catch a good shot of the big guys in flight as they kept leap frogging ahead of us as we headed up the beach.  We would almost reach them and they would fly.  This was repeated over and over until we finally got around them.

The tide was going out making it a very good day to watch the formation of the patterns I love so much in the sand as they were happening.

Lea says she calls them beach trees which I think is a pretty appropriate name.

Since we were sure the tide was heading out we decided to explore the jetty a bit more thoroughly.  Some of the rocks held depressions which always hold water when they are not underneath the surface.  Unlike the West Coast ones, ours do not have that much life in them.  Some sea moss was pretty in this one but no sea urchins or starfish like I have seen in California.

A close view of the tiny barnacles are pretty even though too small in reality to be very eye catching.

I thought the combination of ripples formed by the water in conjunction with bird tracks lightly washed over was pretty nice and not the usual.

The base of the jetty holds lots of broken shells, sometimes pretty enough for retriving sometimes just pretty with their surroundings and best left for others to enjoy or the sea to envelope again next tide.

Mostly the shells are broken pieces attesting to the force of the water as it hits the rocks.

Of course I would spot one more white feather, this one had become a part of the flowing tidal formations adding to the overall design.  Mighty nice, momma nature.

A very close up snails eye view of the beautiful pink (non native invasive species) barnacle with its bits and pieces of pink tentacle or root like appendages along with a tiny bit of bright green seaweed which has become part of this whole minature world of a barnacle which traveled on the bottom of some large ship from far, far away to be dropped on our shore.

Oyster shells also evidence the precarious life that finds itself clinging to any surface available to sustain their survival, deter their demise.

Pools form underneath the massive rocks evidencing life forms there.

The dead and living coexist with one living and building on the other.

More broken pieces of former sealife have crashed upon the rocks either as living or empty shells of a former life.

The mosses mixed with brown and green colors looks like the back of some great hairy beast.

Some spots were almost all brown, some mixed...

...and some bright spots of vivid green among the neutral colors that make up the biggest part of the jetty.  I am told that these great walls against the sea were built from rocks taken from New York when the mass transit system was being built in the early 1900's.  It was an engineering feat to get these great pieces of rock and concrete placed so that they withstand the storms that this great ocean can produce.

The remnants of some great ship's rope has become part of the great sea wall.

More pretty sand patterns wait as we cross on to the river's shore line.  With my hands full of the pretty pink shells I have picked up and the sun getting low I say it is time to leave.  Another day is about to be gone.

The shadows from the almost setting sun just catch the top of the tallest dunes as I drive down the road on my way out of the park.

The light on the West side filtering through the trees convince me that just a few minutes more won't matter that much as I stop to take a look over the marsh and Egan's Creek looking toward the lighthouse.  Sunlight on the Spanish Moss is a nice thing this time of day.

One shaft of light shines through the trees brighter then any other so I stop to see how it has happened and to follow its pathway.  Looking though the sunbeam it is almost like looking into a sun cave with the sun itself peering back at me.  I almost expect to see a Hobbit peer back at me as I look through this magical spot.  Nice to have some warmer days to get outside.  Our visitors from the north say that it is balmy not cold but to us Floridians it has been cold. As the week moved on the weather warmed with days when we can open both the gallery doors.  So for a few days at least the cold that has been so dreary for us has moved away. A bit of news from Charles the Monarch of the Magic Kingdom.  My son, David, was working over at Disney a couple of weeks after I left Charles and he called to say that he saw a Monarch Butterfly there.  I told him of course it had to be Charles because all the others were in Mexico, having left around the first of November.  It was about the time when Charles's mother happened by my flower garden on her way (I actually saw her that day) and with one farewell effort laid the egg that became Charles.  It was the only Monarch I had seen in my yard all year.  I had even tried to photograph her but she was too fast and fleeting for me but I had seen her sitting on the very plant on which I found Charles' caterpillar stage.

By the way did I tell you we have hearts?